Strike Force/Gameplay

Controls

• Joystick: Use the 8-way joystick to direct your ship (yellow for 1P, purple for 2P) around each planet; they will not be killed if they touch the ground.
• Firing Button: Use this button to make your ship fire shots at the enemies; if you have autocannon laser rounds, hold it down to make it fire rapidly.
• Select and Fire Special Weapon Buttons: Use these buttons to cycle through, and fire, each kind of special weapon you have got in your arsenal.
• Start/Transform Buttons: Push these buttons to begin the game as player 1 or player 2 or transform your ship into its turret form (and back again).

Ships

The protagonists of the game; Player 1 controls the yellow ship, while Player 2 controls the purple one. The gameplay's somewhat similar to Sega's Fantasy Zone (which was released five years earlier and also used a Yamaha YM-2151 FM sound chip), in that the ships are not always moving forward, can fly in either direction and will not be killed if they touch the ground) - however, when all the enemies on a planet have been killed, there will not be a boss battle (the closest this game has to boss battles is when a Saurian dreadnought retakes a previously-secured planet on the map, causing it to start flashing, and automatically forcing the players to return there and destroy it if they are close enough to it). Although the game always starts on the planet of Phobos (which is named after the first moon of Mars) you will have between 10 and 30 seconds to direct the shuttle (which beams the two ships down at the start of their visit to each planet) to any of the twenty-one remaining planets upon the map after clearing it; however, if the Federation Supply ship is passing by, you can direct it towards that instead. Both players will then have fifteen seconds to select one of the eleven types of special weapon and press the Start Button to buy it for a Trilithium Crystal (if they do not have any Trilithium Crystals they shall have to insert another coin and use its credit instead) - and they shall also receive an extra life with every purchase, which can be very useful, because it only takes one hit to kill them. Both players will also receive extra lives at every 50,000 points by default; once all twenty-two planets have been secured, the shuttle will automatically fly towards the Saurian Mega-Star "Apocalypse". If you are lucky enough to reach its core and destroy it, the game will end - and award one free credit.

Items

There are fourteen different types of items which litter the surfaces of the planets and they're all described in the table below; their descriptions are taken from the game's attract mode (on the high-score table, it tells prospective players to push either Firing Button for game hints at the bottom of the screen):

Item	Name	Description
	Trilithium Crystal	Very rare and valuable. Can be exchanged in supply center for weapons and powerups.
	Bomb	Plentiful supply. Drop on ground targets.
	Megabomb	A cluster of 20 regular bombs. Trigger once for launch sequence. Fly fast to blast a large area.
	Canister Shell	Trigger to fire forward spreading blast of many high density neutron pellets.
	Energy Shield	Ship is invulnerable while engaged. However, Marines can be blasted loose. Energy field will damage aliens. Short duration.
	Fire Bomb	Dumps burning death gel on ground targets. Fly fast to incinerate larger area.
	Seeker Rockets	Trigger to launch 3 rockets. Actively seeks nearest alien threat. If no threat, circles guarding ship.
	Radar Homing Tetra-Mine	Trigger to deploy mine field. Slowly seeks nearest alien threat. If no threat, waits where deployed.
	Atomic Neutralizer	Blasts all nearby enemies. Kills alien life forms. Has minor effect on alien machinery.
	Firestar	Creates high-powered energy beam. Most effective weapon against machinery. Rumored to be the power source of Ice Snakes.
	Time Warp	Slows all aliens. Very effective against quick enemies. Repeated use increases duration.
	Rapid-Fire Laser Autocannon	Adds 100 autocannon laser rounds. Hold Fire Button for autocannon, Beat Fire Button for single shots to conserve autocannon.
	Electro-Plasma Photons	Replaces standard laser cannon. Does increased damage to machinery. Unlimited use until ship destroyed.
	Nitro-Powered After Burner	Increases thrust for better acceleration and speed. Unlimited use until ship destroyed.

However, they all appear much smaller on the surface of the planets - and you shall also have to rescue the colonists before they are transformed by the Saurians and turn against you (but you can still pick them up for extra points after the transformation). Shooting items will also not destroy them but send them flying into the air instead; however, shooting colonists will kill them as only bumping into them from the sides will send them flying into the air. Also, when it says that "Marines can be blasted loose" in the Energy Shield description, it means that when either player calls the shuttle in to beam one down to the underside of their ship (and fire their guns with every shot), they can lose their grip on it and fall to the surface of the planet (which shall kill them) - and this will also happen if they are hit by any enemy (apart from the Saurians, the Ice Snakes are the only ones that are actually named!) or their shots.